Renault reported on Wednesday a 9% increase in its global sales volume in 2023, returning to growth after four consecutive years of decline attributable to its strategic repositioning, its exit from the Russian market and the shortage of semiconductors.
The diamond group sold 2.23 million vehicles – cars and vans – worldwide last year, it said in a press release.
Sales of the Renault brand, which represents more than two-thirds of the group’s sales, increased by 9.4%, and those of the economical Dacia brand (a third of total sales), increased by 14.7%.
The group’s high-end sports brand, Alpine, sold 4,328 Berlinettes (+22.1%).
Values-driven policy
The French carmaker had again recorded a 5.9% drop in its volumes in 2022, while it had set a sales record of 3.88 million vehicles – cars and vans – in 2018.
Financially shaken by the crisis in several of its markets, Renault turned its back on its global sales ambitions, reducing its range and reorienting itself, under the leadership of Luca de Meo, towards its most profitable geographies and models.
“(Our) commercial policy remains focused on value, which is not contradictory to gaining market share,” declared Fabrice Cambolive, general director of the diamond brand, during a press conference.
“We are recovering in terms of attractiveness (…) our design is improving, our mixed versions are still very high (…) and we also see it with the conquest rates,” he added.
“The idea is to continue at this same level of performance” in 2024.
The group, which will publish its annual financial results on February 15, is targeting an operating margin of between 7% and 8%, up from less than 6% in 2022.
If Europe was at the center of the first years of its strategic recovery plan (the continent still represented 63% of the diamond brand’s sales in 2023), Renault intends to once again develop outside Europe with 8 new launches at the level internationally by 2027.
The electrified models ont represent 40% of sales of the Renault brand in 2023, against 38% in 2022, and the purely electrified models – at the heart of the Ampère project, do not l’introduction in Bourse est prévue d’ici l’été – 11 % sales.
“In 2024 we will be able to complete our electric vehicle offering” with the Scenic and the R5, continued Fabrice Cambolive. “Therefore, we should improve this percentage in the coming months with the arrival of these new releases.”
10 new models in 2024
With all the engines combined, the manufacturer will launch a total of no less than ten new models this year: seven Renaults, two Dacias and its first electric Alpine.
Regarding supply disruptions caused by changes in shipping routes due to attacks in the Red Sea on the sidelines of the war in Gaza, Renault has sufficient visibility at the moment.
“We have visibility for the next eight weeks, then we don’t know what could happen,” Fabrice Cambolive responded. “A priori we will not be affected in the coming weeks by this supply crisis.”
The group’s order book in Europe represents two and a half months of sales expected at the end of December, Renault added in its press release. By 2024, it expects stability in the automobile market in Europe and Latin America, and an 11% drop in Eurasia.
Source: BFM TV
